Today, technology has evolved many different ways to communicate. Various applications like Skype, email, mobile phone and social media are integral part of our work life.
After the availability of these applications, I think face to face interaction is the best way to communicate. As Team Leader, I regularly call and email to various people but I build the best relationships with client's when I meet them personally. The concept works the same in the business industry. Face to face interaction with clients, employees and customers is very important to your success.
Here are some benefits of face to face communication:
1. Body Language: An author of body language James Borg says that human communication consists of 93% body language and paralinguistic cues, and only 7% of words. Our body language speaks a lot louder than words. So, you can gain a better understanding of how a candidate or client is feeling with face to face communication, than you would otherwise not be able to through other forms of communication.
2. Value: For many business organizations, travel and meeting budgets were the first to get cut back when the recession hit. However, traveling to meet a client or candidate shows them that they are worth your time and money and vice versa. So with face to face communication, you can have the better value. You will have their 100% attention and your message is guaranteed to be heard.
3. Building Relationships: In a survey of 760 business executives, 84% preferred face to face communications. Those 85% of business executives said that their reason was that it builds stronger and more meaningful business relationships. Respondents also said that face to face meetings are best for persuasion (91%), leadership (87%) and engagement (86%).
4. Misunderstandings: Sometimes an email has been misunderstood or perceived by another party to be rude when it is not, affect your relationship with client. On the other hand, face to face communications minimize the risk of miscommunication compared to email or over the phone. If there is any misunderstanding, it can be thought out easily at that moment.
Although face to face interaction is the preferred method of communication, but the age of technology and other forms of communication allows us to save money and time and we're no longer restricted on location, which in turn reduce our carbon footprint and increasing productivity.
What is your preferred method of communication? Do you prefer face to face communication? Share your views with us in the comment section below.